The residence hall parking spaces will be relocated west of Carmichael Hall to a section of a parking lot that has for several years been used for contractor parking. There are ample spaces there, according to BSU spokesperson Kathy Wolf, who added, "Actually, this is a better location for the students who live in the nearby residence halls as they will not have to cross McKinley Avenue."

Knowing it would need to displace commuter parking in the area, the university "proactively last summer-early fall constructed additional commuter parking spaces south of the baseball field along Tillotson Avenue/Bethel Avenue, which provided about 150 additional spaces," Wolf told The Star Press.

"Also last year … we made available parking spaces for commuter parking in the parking lot around the building we now own and formerly called the Anthony Administration Building located along Oakwood Avenue," she went on. "This provides about 70 to 80 spaces for commuters. We route a shuttle bus to that location to pick up students."

In the vicinity of the new traffic circle, construction of a new dining hall adjacent to LaFollette Complex has begun. It is scheduled to open in the fall of 2020. In the same area, construction activity for a new residence hall along McKinley will not begin until after fall move-in.

"With the traffic circle … the traffic will hopefully slow down on McKinley and it'll be more of an urban kind of setting," consulting architect Rob Reis, of Norfolk, Va., told the university's trustees last year.

Previously, McKinley curved around where LaFollette sits. Now it forms a right angle at the traffic circle, which also is meant to create a nice, clean entrance to the northern part of campus.

"We are constructing a traffic circle, not a roundabout," Lowe told The Star Press earlier this year. "The main difference is the approaches or geometrics. The traffic circle is more of a 90-degree approach to a circle, and calms or slows traffic, perhaps stopping traffic at the approaches into the circle. It’s also intended to be one lane. A roundabout allows a more gradual, sweeping approach, and moves traffic quicker."

As a result, a traffic circle is safer for pedestrians, he said.

The circle will be about the same size as the roundabouts at Jackson Street/Morrison Road and Walnut Street/Riggin Road.

A traffic circle is visible in this drawing of new residence and dining halls to replace LaFollette Complex at Ball State University.(Photo: Ball State University)